Delicate baked goods sit atop the spotless white counters inside the white walls of Růže Cake House during business hours.
Jessica Rose and her mother Joyce Boulett co-founded the small bakery in Old Town Scottsdale after they outgrew the small business out of Boulett’s house with the thought of an immaculate aesthetic in mind.
“My mom and I, when we started selling cakes out of our house, we never wanted a storefront,” Rose said. “It wasn’t until we sort of outgrew her house that we were like ‘okay we need to get a storefront’. We just drew on our own likes and dislikes. I can’t say we looked at a single bakery as inspiration. We tried to pull from within, so we don’t look like anything else people have ever seen.”
Rose aims to use her creativity to come up with aesthetically pleasing and inventively flavored pastries, such as cakes, cookies and their best-selling macaroons.
“We just like to keep it really clean and fresh,” Rose said. “We have a different aesthetic than most bakeries, and I think that’s appealing to people. Just because it’s not the traditional sugar cookies. It’s the cactus cookies and things like that.”
All of the components in the desserts from scratch at Růže Cake House Rose said including the fondant.
According to Rose, they have their own chickens, which produce most of the eggs they use.
The baked goods are made using quality, local ingredients, so Rose said this sets Růže Cake House apart from other bakeries.
“Quality of ingredients is really important,” Rose said. “We use a local dairy for milk for our drinks. We try to get our produce locally… It’s so easy to care about your ingredients.”
In addition to what goes into the product, they make a point to focus on the appearance of the final dessert.
Rose focuses on the designs that draw in customers, enough that they didn’t need to take any loans to rent the business space after saving up for two years.
Cakes must cost $150 minimum, and wedding cakes can range from $700 to $1400 or more, depending on the number of guests.
Their various smaller desserts and drinks range $2-$7 per treat depending on the type.
Růže Cake House’s two staples are the macaroons which start from $2.50 and its cactus cookies which.
“We do our macaroons different from most places,” Rose said. “Most places they’ll just flavor the buttercream and it will be one type of filling. But we really try to draw in flavors from other deserts and other food products… We put probably three times as much effort into each macaroon as most places, but it comes out as really fun, interesting flavors.”
Rose and her staff make thousands of macaroons a week, she said a good gauge would be 5,000 a week.
“Last week was the busiest week we’ve ever had in the history of the company,” Rose said. “We did 12 weddings, which is insane. Plus, the front of house was really busy because all the snowbirds are coming in.”
Although they did not hire any employees for six months after they opened in August of 2016, Rose said she owes part of her success to her employees, who have helped keep up with the high number of orders they continue to receive.
“My mom and I never thought we’d be able to bring on a staff that could do as much and as quickly as my mom and I could do,” Rose said. “But we found people and I think that’s what’s also helped in our success, just even over the past six months. We can put out a lot of product at high quality because we have a really strong team in back of girls who are really hard workers and really smart and passionate.”
Kyndra Kelly began as an intern with Růže Cake House in February, and stayed as a full-time employee.
“I always knew I wanted to do cakes, and my friends from school were doing resorts and stuff. I knew that wasn’t my thing,” Kelly said. “I researched places and this place is so cute, the aesthetic of it and stuff, so it really just pulled me in.”
Boulett said she was glad to have the extra help after 60 years of baking herself.
“I love being able to keep trying new recipes and playing around with designs,” Boulett said. “It’s a perfect fit because everything I can’t do, [Jessica] does and what she can’t do, I do.”
Rose and her mother drew on inspiration of the Czech heritage with the name Růže, which means rose.
Rose said she gets to “flex her creative muscle” and hopes to continue to appeal customers.
“I don’t think we have any mission,” Rose said. “It’s just keep doing better today than we did yesterday, and keep coming up with new ideas. We never want to get stagnant, and we never want people to get bored with the selection. So we’re always trying to push the envelope and come up with something new.”
